About the story of Black Ops 3

I have always been a fan of the Call of Duty series. It has always fascinated me how almost all of the CoD games that I played had a story that was both interesting and engaging. Oh, did I forget to mention that I was talking about the campaign mission?

The majority of the game reviews out there talk about the multiplayer capabilities and experience when reviewing almost every other Call of Duty game since the original Modern Warfare. However, there are certainly people who play CoD games to this day just for the sheer fun of campaign mode. I belong to that category of people.

Around the beginning of the campaign mode of Black Ops 3.

I’ve repeatedly ranted in this land of ranting that I suck at multiplayer, and I do not enjoy it. Apart from the obvious truth that I’m not skillful in any multiplayer — shooting, racing, whatever —I feel like everyone in the opposing team is real enemies and sometimes their behaviors seem like they are unnecessarily rude. Take one GTA Online racing session for example. I was driving and enjoying the beautiful city of Los Santos while trying to stay ahead in the game when an opponent drove into me, sending me off track, pretty much out of the race.

So what went wrong with Black Ops 3? Did they overcomplicate it trying to tell a story in a futuristic fashion? Or is it just my brain not accepting the fact that, in the future, not just the tactics and the technology, but the entirety of how a war takes place might be changed? But I thought, war…war never changes!

Now, why did he or she feel the need to do this? I was ahead of him; he could simply show off how skillful he is and get ahead of me in corners (or in raw speed, since he had a better ride). But instead, he had to take me down like it was Road Rash from the 90s. (Was Road Rash released in the 90s? I feel like everything in my childhood was in the 90s!)

Flying a drone was fun all right!

Then again, perhaps taking down the opponent (me) and leaving him no chance of getting ahead in the game is the skill that everyone is trying to master. Perhaps, he was fair in the game. And I was being too good to be in a multiplayer session.

As you can guess, I left the session shortly afterward and headed towards the single-player campaign of Far Cry 4.

Whoa, we were supposed to talk about the story of Black Ops 3, weren’t we?

Well, let’s get back to the point.

Black Ops 3 is a really great game. The graphics are better than ever. The gameplay mechanics feel solid and robust. There are more cool things to do such as hacking drones and using them against enemies. But there’s one thing that I’m really not digging this time. It’s the story.

It’s still a Call of Duty game, make no mistake. But I had trouble connecting to the storyline this time around.

As I’ve said above, story and great gameplay are what attracted me to every other Call of Duty game that I’ve played (I didn’t play all of them). But I feel like I don’t understand the story of Black Ops 3. I mean, yeah I do, but I can’t relate to it. It doesn’t feel real. And I have to concentrate on every word being spoken during the cutscene to understand what the heck is going on.

I’m not sure if I’m really fighting against enemies or if it’s all in a dream — like Assassin’s Creed. Am I in a deep sleep, going back in time to fix things by preventing other things from happening, while at the same time communicating with my teammates and bosses from the present time? Is this war within a war? Is this warception?

Okay. All right. Tell me more. Or don’t. Whatever.

Frankly speaking, it got to a point where I just gave up on the idea of the story and pushed through the gameplay. I understand that Black Ops 3’s story is supposed to be part-sci-fi, but Destiny is a full sci-fi game. Not that Destiny has a great story, but I loved the single-player missions (or co-op missions without any other player) and did not have any trouble understanding what was going on.

Such future. Much complicated. So confusing. Wow.

So what went wrong with Black Ops 3? Did they overcomplicate it trying to tell a story in a futuristic fashion? Or is it just my brain not accepting the fact that, in the future, not just the tactics and the technology, but the entirety of how a war takes place might be changed? But I thought, war…war never changes! 😦

Whatever the case, I expected Call of Duty Black Ops 3 to have a more human approach. I understand why the writers opted for something like this — with futuristic sci-fi being the norm these days –, but I wish it were different.

The last CoD game that I played was Ghosts. I’m not saying that Ghosts had a heartbreakingly breathtaking story, but that was still something I could relate to as a human despite the fact that I didn’t like the climax. The story of Black Ops 3 feels like it was made for robots, not humans.

Perhaps, with technology all around us, we’re heading into a future where we ourselves will become robots? 😐

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Published by A. I. Sajib

I unapologetically enjoy writing about tech and life. I love cars. I'm a Happiness Engineer at Automattic/WordPress.com. The best way to get to know more about me is through my blog at http://ais.blog
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